CHAPTER LXIX. 



REPORT ON THE GEOLOGY OF MEDINA COUNTY. 



BY ALFRED W. WHEAT. 



Medina county is bounded on the north by Lorain and Cuyahoga, on 

 the south by Wayne, on the east by Summit, on the west by Lorain and 

 Ashland counties. 



There are seventeen townships in the county, containing collectively 

 four hundred and fifteen square miles. Like most of the "Western Re- 

 serve," this county is largely given up to the dairy interest — the manu- 

 facture of cheese. 



The total number of farms in Medina county, as given in the census 

 report for the year 1870, is 2,722, over 2 000 of the number being of less 

 than one hundred acres each, and of the latter number a few more than 

 half are farms of less than fiftj' acres each. 



The highest land in the county is in Wadsworth, one mile north-east 

 of the village; and it is over seven hundred feet above Lake Erie. Some 

 portions in the north-western part of the county have an altitude of 

 from two hundred and fifty to three hundred feet only above Lake Erie. 

 The eastern half of the county is quite rolling, the western much more 

 nearly level. 



The accompanying map shows the principal channels of drainage ; 

 the streams flow both to the north and the south, eventually finding the 

 St. Lawrence and Mississippi Rivers. There is but one lake in this 

 county, Chippewa Lake, the extreme length of which is one mile and a 

 half. 



The soil in the western portion of the county is mostly clay. In 

 Harristtiville township two thousand acres are covered with peat. 



The indigenous forest trees upon the clay lands are elm, beech, maple, 

 oak, hickory, linden, black walnut, butternut, and, in the river bottoms, 

 sycamore. Chestnut trees are prevalent along the ledges and sandy 

 tracts in the eastern part of the county. 



Glacial markings are shown wherever the rock is exposed and is of 

 such a nature as to retain them. The general trend of the striae is 



